It doesn't seem like it to me. ISTM that they're implying that most sql tools have a gui component which isn't friendly to running remotely over an ssh session.

It doesn't seem like it to me. ISTM that they're implying that most sql tools have a gui component which isn't friendly to running remotely over an ssh session. I've personally never seen a good experience of display forwarding over ssh. Of course, most people and tools get around this by tunneling a connection to the database over ssh and running the GUI locally.